SIIDA HAD ALMOST 100,000 VISITORS IN 2014

Of the visitors, 45 percent were from Finland and 55 from abroad. The share of foreigners grew from the year 2013. French (3792) were the biggest group of foreigners and Germans (3788) almost as big a group. Other bigger groups were Swiss (1781), Italians (1728), North Americans (1634) and Dutch (1583).

The statistics on nationalities contained 74 different countries/nationalities. The number of visitors from Estonia (166), Hungary (107) and Slovenia (72) was delightfully high. The travellers from Asia included, for example, Singaporeans (85) and Israelis (69). The visitors from other American countries than the USA and Canada included Brazilians (91), and, as for Oceania, most of the visitors came from New Zealand (68). As regards African countries, South Africa had the most visitors (36). The list also included countries that seldom appear in traveller statistics here, such as the United Arab Emirates, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Argentina, Peru, Uganda and Zimbabwe, each of which had  1–6 visitors.

In terms of visitors, July with its 9317 guests was the busiest month. January, April, May, June and December were the months when Siida had more visitors than in 2013. We are especially happy about the fact that the number of visitors rose for November and December. For the past four years, we have witnessed an increase for these two months that are characterised by the polar night. In November 2010, we had 177 visitors, while in 2013 and 2014 the number was over 2200. The same applies to December: in 2010, the number was 1080 and, in 2014, close to 3000.

The counter statistics of Metsähallitus on visits to excursion destinations gave nice results for the year 2014.

The Juutua Trail and its bridge over the Jäniskoski Rapids – that were repaired jointly by Metsähallitus and the municipality of Inari in 2013 – had been used by 10,232 persons by the end of 2014. In winter, too, the trail has had many users, for example, 395 people in December. The counters on the trail to and by the Pielpajärvi Wilderness Church gave, for the first time, a completely successful result in 2014: 6445 visitors came to admire the old wilderness church last year.

The visitor figures for the Lemmenjoki National Park and the Kevo Nature Preserve stayed at the same level as earlier: Lemmenjoki had 12,160 and Kevo 4323 visitors. The Sulaoja Nature Trail keeps yielding a steady result: in 2014, the number of hikers increased by ten from the previous summer (2014: 2650).